


GLASS

by Mikkeneko



Series: Anders Goes to Orzammar [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Worldbuilding, practical applications of magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 20:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6165477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A "One Elegant Solution" interlude. What use is a spell that turns sand to glass? Lots, it turns out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	GLASS

**Author's Note:**

> At least one of my readers left a comment wondering what kind of economy the mage settlement can have. I don't intend to go into great depth in the main body of the story, but here's at least part of it.

It starts small. One of the mages who makes it to Refuge figures out a spell to turn sand into glass -- a combination of fire and arcane, heat and pressure in careful balance. Rough, crude, unrefined – just a slab of cloudy glass shooting up from the sand at their feet, and the other mages laugh and clap and cheer as though he’s just invented the greatest game of the Age. This is magic used to  _make_  something – not to burn, not to freeze, not to crush, not to destroy, not even to heal, but to make.

They all want to learn. He teaches everyone who asks, and soon the valley is littered with plates of glass as a hundred mages play enthusiastically with the new toy.

(Anders returns from the Deep Roads, steps out into the valley, and nearly trips over a stack of glass sheets and faceplants into a pile of them. “What the _fuck_ ,” he swears, as he stares out in dismay at the growing irregular mounds of them. “I was only gone for a  _week_.”

The mages grin sheepishly and shrug, and nudge each other to be the one to answer. “Sorry, Healer,” the one elected spokesperson says. “You  _did_  say we should try to lean more life skills, though!”

Anders sighs and rubs his hands over his face. “What in the Maker’s name are we going to do with all this glass?” he complains to Surana, who shrugs and then suggests, “Greenhouses?”)

The greenhouses go up first, keeping warmth and wetness close in the cool, dry mountain air, and soon bringing rows of verdant green to the alpine slopes. They grow ranks on ranks of herbs, elfroot, verbana, embrium, foxglove, spindleweed, licorice, even blood lotus, every herb they knew in the Circle and a dozen more they picked up on their pilgrimage here. They practice the crafts they know, making potions and poultices to trade with the dwarves and the Avvar and sell to travelers to earn money for Refuge. Before the month is out they run out of the vials they brought with them, and it doesn’t take long before the mage who invented the glass-making spell is finding ways to refine it.

Smaller, thinner, more delicate, more graceful; they shape the glass into curves and globes and cylinders and fine stoppers, and they make so many of the vials that they soon get bored and start decorating them: fanciful shapes, a swan, a flower, a puffer fish, dolphins leaping and playing in relief about the rim, all colors, blue, red, green, pink. Soon the vials themselves are just as much of a trade item as their contents, beautiful fragile things that make their way in careful straw-packed crates across the mountain passes. Failed efforts that won’t stay airtight litter the crafting area, and soon the mages are taking them home and hanging them up over their bunk beds to catch the light, glittering and turning and flashing colored shadows across their faces.

The thick sheets of glass that are the first clumsy learning efforts continue to pile up, far more than they need for the greenhouses. It’s a runecrafter who learns that a rune of protection, inscribed on a sheet of glass, will make it unbreakable. There are more: runes of heat, runes of repelling, runes of silence. Anything they need, anything they want.

When winter comes the panes of glass begin to go up over the walkways, between the central Tower where the children stay and and the dozens of little buildings scattered around it where the adult mages live. One of the dwarven engineers takes pity on them and shows them how to fit the panes together at angles, geometric patterns set against each other to bear the weight and shed the snow. The glass keeps the snow out and the  heat in, and makes walking around the village for study or work or play easy and comfortable. Spring comes and the snow melts but the glass roofs stay; most of the mages grew up all their lives indoors and they still don’t really care for the wind and rain, although they love the sight of the sky.

Slowly the glass creeps out from the center towards the edges of the town, roofing all in glittering crystal. The whole town, wrought and warded by magic, in the heart of the Frostback mountains, a jewel glittering in the sun.

~end.


End file.
